Finally...finally...we got to the club today for a four player game of 'To the Strongest'. We used my medieval 100 Years War French and English in 1/72 scale, troops I've been painting and tinkering with all year.
It's been my passion project for 2021, I've just fallen in love with the period. As my collection grew from a few dozen Airfix 'Sheriff of Nottingham' figures, to a few boxes of Zvezda, Miniart and Italeri figures, I started researching some system or rules for larger skirmish multiplayer games.
We've been playing Lion Rampant /Dragon Rampant throughout the year, and it's a game that I love, but I do love larger, multiplayer games. I love the social aspect of gaming with a few of my mates. After a bit of research, 'To The Strongest' seemed like a good fit. So several weeks ago, I purchased the rules and started prepping for a game.
Well...that was before Covid, work, family and all of the typical obstacles got in the way.
Today...after weeks of all these various gaming disruptions, I managed to organise a multiplayer game of 'To The Strongest'. I'd been keen to get us all together for a big game before the end of the year, before work, family and the cyclical nature of living in Darwin plays out...meaning, of course, people leaving the Territory.
Today was a bittersweet day, cuz one of my regular gaming friends, M_...is leaving town.
I wanted to have an epic gaming shindig to send him off, so I made another 'To The Strongest' mat to ensure a much bigger game. I even spent last night somewhat carefully organising four separate retinues for the game. Each side had approximately 150 points, and each player, a retinue of about 75 points worth of units.
As it turned out, one of our players couldn't make it, but Darwin Tabletop Gamers is such a great place to play that there happened to be a bloke that dropped by to see the club. He had just relocated to Darwin and was keen to join in for a game...I just threw it out there and asked him if he was keen to have a bash, and he jumped at the chance.
We had our fourth player and we were ready to jump right in.
I've lived here for almost seven years and the place has just rubbed off on me I guess. People here are very open and welcoming, and to be honest...I didn't want to play the English alone. So there was the four of us...me...S_, M_ and A_ (our freshly minted wargamer).
It only took about 10 mins of a rudimentary run through to get figures moving around the grid board.
Well I won't get into too much detail here because the game flowed quickly. There was a lot of interplay between players as units moved unto charging distance or had to make saves. After a few turns we were all having a great time, goofing around, doing the old 'Monty Python' voices and making jokes about the arrogant French etc etc.
First blood went to the French as A_ , on the English right flank, attempted to sneak around the farm house and cut through the 'cornfields'. They were met by a wall of French Crossbowmen, Halberdiers and Javelinmen that never relented through the game. A_ did well to motivate and activate his English, flipping cards and throwing down multiple moves like a boss.
A_ tried time and time again to break through using his Peasant Mob (cheap fodder really, but 'deep' units as such...good to soak up French arrows hahaha) units and halberdiers to grind a breakthrough. He managed to destroy two units, giving the English a few paltry victory medals...but man oh man...those cornfields got soaked in peasant blood...
For some reason, the French Crossbowmen's aim was accurate, and the light English Archers and Longbowmen couldn't get a single hit!
On the English Left Flank, I just couldn't break through either. I had some early success by rushing my mounted troops over and around the small hill in an attempt to out-flank the French. My Mounted Knights managed to get close enough to assault the French Javelin unit but they held their ground in the rough terrain of the woods. My Mounted Bowmen also reached the hilltop, but the vantage point didn't really pay dividends as they missed their shots.
This is when good old M_ and S_ used their Stratagem card....flipping a King of Spades card, and revealing a lost unit of French Crossbowmen. Lucky for them as well, it arrived just in time and on the flank of my mounted units. Those French crossbows began to throw down some devastating fire....routing both my Mounted Knights and Mounted Bowmen over a the next few turns.
My Halberdiers, and Longbowmen were upholding their end of the deal...although my Longbowmen were horribly inaccurate...eventually they ran out of arrows, and were overrun and slaughtered. My Halberdiers and 'Raw' Pikemen didn't last much longer either, and were soon surrounded.
Eventually the English resolve just broke as my Longbowmen were lost and A_s Foot Knights were ground down on the right flank. Soon, the English lost half of their 'Medals' and became 'Demoralised', we would eventually concede defeat with only a few medals left.
Oddly enough, I don't think I've had such a fun time in such a one sided game.
After our initial gains, our English just got ground down. This sounds bad I know, but on the day, sometimes the dice doesn't roll well or the cards don't give you what you want. In our case, our bowmen were just horrible. Horrible. I think they scored two hits in the entire game. Even the French Javelins were more accurate.
But it was just so much fun!!
We had a really, really good time with this rules set. The throw down aspect of the cards makes it so much fun, and I admit I was a bit skeptical about the card play. I love grid games for some reason, but as I was learning the game solitaire I found the card play difficult to remember. Not so when you are playing head to head and playing combat/save card play off the table away from the board. This is recommended in the rules and it really flows well. In fact, it adds a brilliant part of theatre to the game. There was a lot of trash talk and goofing around as we locked eyes and threw our cards down, maybe it's just me, but throwing cards down is much, much more satisfying than rolling dice.
The game lasted about four hours, and the English side conceded a few turns after we became demoralised and our troops fell down the slippery slope of defeat.
Hopefully, in the next few weeks, we can reschedule a re-match.
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